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Wednesday, April 22, 2009

A lovely Christmas gift, neatly wrapped up ,..opened .. by three pairs of tiny hands, reaching impatiently to dig in at the yummiest goodie sitting pretty inside…the tiniest fingers(of myli’l sis )vouching for the thin white layer of simple white spread on top :) satisfied for the moment licking ‘em up..the other two pairs continuing for the rich, moist, chocolaty treat…

The above used to be the usual scene, every Christmas, when we were children.Somehow ,three us were no great fans of those royal iced fruit cakes with the usual deep coloured hard sugar roses on top, which enter one by one during the festive season..

These Chocolate cakes make me truly nostalgic, simply turning me back to those lovely days, sent over specially by Omanaaunty, our neighbour, in other words, Mrs Omana Paul, the master mind of the famous Devon Foods Ltd and a very well known caterer of our town)..yes we’re still lucky to receive her yummiest goodies, till date..;)..

(Let me hope she doesn’t chance upon my blog, esp this pick of mine as she's seemingly a li’l reluctant to share her specialities ;)..)

Prathibha,Glad to note you tried this cake and came out well :)Coconut instead of butter!!!??Did you realy substitute that way??Interesting!! :)..All is well that ends well ;)!Thanx for the lovely feed back!

Yeah, I prefer using coconut oil to butter most of the times when baking. :) and comes out well usually. The first time I experimented with coconut oil while making pumpkin bread, I thought I might even smell like some curry we make using coconut oil, like the flavor of tadka! lol.. But no one has ever found out the difference till now unless I say! :)

Well, the only stupidity I did was with the size and shape of the baking dish which was deeper in the middle and shallow at the sides with some octagonal hexagonal and pentagonal shapes together! The middle portion took longer to bake and sides got a bit dry because of that! Never mind! there is always a next time. But this is the first time I got a moist cake, only the sides were a lil dry! Perfect recipe for me! Next tym I will be careful with the dish! :)

Hi,I just tried this cake yesterday and you wont believe what a big HIT it was!! Everyone loved how soft it was. I didnot use salt and I used Bru Instant coffee powder instead.I also just used plain milk. This was the best cake I have ever made... Thank u sooooooooooooo much for sharing :-)I already feel like a great chef ;)

Oh and also for the Icing i just found a great and simple method online. I mixed sugar, milk, butter and cocoa and I warmed it in sim flame, just so that the sugar and butter melts. (Warming is important as the melting sugar gives the glaze and shine for the cake).

Finally once the cake is baked, let it sit for 10mins and then pour this icing on top with a brush and spread evenly. This not only is sinfully yummy but it also gives the deep dark chocolaty colour for your cake...

Jen, you donno how Glad I feel now!..You have made my day!!!!! :)I am so glad to note that you loved it..Thanks a ton for your tips on icing!..will certainly try that when I bake next!!!!Hugs,Bharathy :)

Hi ,Can you tell me what cocoa you use for this cake? Does the indian Cadbury's work? My cakes never get this dark colour i've tried the imported cadbury's orange tin and Hershey's but still looking for the right one.Thanks,Chandini

Chandni, You are right, I used to make the cake with cadbury's when I was young, following Omana aunty's recipe,since that was the only brand available those times in my native town.

For the one you see here, I used Al Alali, a popular brand in the middle east, which my brother got for me..it's towards the darker side..but gets the right lighter hue, I guess, with the addition of ing like yogurt..:)...

I tried this out and this came out excellent... Don't know whether I want to try this again though.... coz it was soooo tempting and I just could not stop eating it :-) Thanks for sharing such a wonderful recipe...

hI, iAM A FIRST TIMER HERE AND LOVED UR BLOG TO THE CORE....WHAT A BUNCH OF LOVELY RECIPES....i have been here for some time, just hooked!.IAM FOLLOWING YOU DEAR....STOP AT MY LITTLE SPACE WHEN U FIND SOME TIME...

I am ardent follower of ur site...love ur cooking n of course the pics r sooo tempting...i had tried some of ur recipes and the mushroom manchurian was a superhit at home....

btw,i have a small doubt....wat is the diff b/w a castor sugar,an icing sugar and a confectioner's sugar??are they same or different???and which sugar should i add in a whipping cream??-icing sugar/confectioner's sugar/castor sugar/granulated sugar???